A blog by Joanne Yatvin

You Can’t Quantify Kids or Teachers

by writerjoney on June 21, 2018

Yesterday I wrote a terrific piece for this blog. And I was almost ready to check it and post it when I accidentally wiped out the whole piece and could not recover it. I’m hoping I can remember enough to write it again—but not today. Instead I am posting a piece I wrote more than two years ago that I hope will be new for some readers and a good reminder for followers who read it back then.

Although I was determined to post today’s essay for a long time, I have also been nervous about how pompous it may sound to many readers. What has moved me to take the risk is the continuing idiocy of evaluating teachers on students’ test scores, even when they didn’t actually teach some of those students. To me the basic principles of teacher evaluation today are utterly without validity because it is not possible for one person to control the behavior of another unless the first person is a master and the second is a slave. Even that doesn’t work all the time.

Most of us, I think, can name the qualities that go into being a good cook, a good friend, or a good driver. But could we convert those qualities into quantities? Would each quality have the same weight? And what if our two best friends had different qualities, that when tallied up showed a wide discrepancy? What if one friend added up to a 95 and the other added up to 63?

All of this must seem hopelessly complicated and, very likely, inane. Who would want to measure one friend against another? But that is exactly the inanity going on in states and school districts bent on measuring the quality of students on their test scores. Even worse than that is the practice of judging the quality of teachers by their students’ test scores so one teacher can be labeled “effective” and another “failing.”

To make matters worse, the people setting up the measurement formulas don’t seem to know what the qualities of a good teacher are. Most of them can name only the ability to generate high student test scores, while the rest go blank after adding the ability to manage classroom behavior.

Although I can’t resolve the numbers dilemma, I can, from my own experience as a teacher and a principal, name a set of qualities that reflect my beliefs about teacher quality, and I want to do that here. To me the most important one is the ability to inspire students to delve more deeply into the things taught in class, whether that is math, writing, science, or civility.

To help you get a fuller picture of my concept of teaching excellence, below is a list of teacher qualities that I believe are important. They are what I looked for in my teachers when I was a principal. Be warned, however, that they were never a “rubric” for me and should not be one for today’s principals or other evaluators. They are ideals that very few of us can live up to all the time, the “A plusses” of performance. And even if some teachers could do them all, every day over the years, an evaluator might not recognize them or give them the same value I do.

A good teacher

Is aware of each student’s academic strengths and weaknesses and home or community problems

Establishes a system of small group and independent learning that allows students to experience the roles of leader, follower, partner, and innovator

Plans lessons designed to cover the range of students’ instructional needs, connect to their interests, and strengthen their current knowledge and skills or move them into new territory

Adjusts lessons while teaching in response to students’ questions and actions

Makes an effort to include positive suggestions for improvement when critiquing a student’s work

Demonstrates respect and trust for students and expects them to give the same back to her/him and their classmates

Discusses problems about behavior, attendance, or classwork with students privately, out of respect for their rights and personal dignity.

Develops professional relationships with fellow teachers inside their school and also with some who teach elsewhere

Develops good communication and partnership relationships with students’ parents to serve the children’s best interests

Continually works to improve and expand one’s own professional knowledge and skills.

Although I suspect that my list is incomplete, it is long enough to convey my concept of good teaching and make clear why it can’t be measured or even perceived by evaluators who don’t know a teacher’s work first-hand through many classroom visits and observations outside classroom actions.

In any school, the ideal evaluator is a principal who has the time to visit classrooms regularly and observe teachers informally in many different situations. As a result of those efforts a good principal knows which teachers to move into positions of greater responsibility, which ones need help to improve, and those few who are not suited to continue in this profession.

I am well aware that throughout this essay I have been speaking of ideals, not reality. Neither I nor the teachers I have supervised met all those ideals every day. But we tried, and we recognized many of our own weaknesses as individuals and as a group. We did our best to respect, support, and forgive each other, knowing that– like our students– we were still learners.